Old Salt, New Spot

One of Seattle's best bagels has a new standalone shop in Ballard

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). If you’re interested in taking this journey with me, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a review. If you want to ensure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.

I’m not entirely sure how Old Salt’s new location in Ballard snuck up on me. It’s not like they hid the news of their first standalone brick-and-mortar spot on 6309 24th Ave NW.

The problem, I suppose, is that my best social media days are already behind me. I gave up Facebook a long time ago and I was never much of an Instagram poster but between 2010 and 2022 you’d have been hard-pressed to find a day where I wasn’t tweeting. Being a writer who was overseeing anywhere between one and three websites at any given moment, Twitter was an extension of my job and, for better or worse, personal life. I was already starting to feel like my best tweets were behind me when Elon Musk entered the picture. I can stand that guy about as much as I can stand someone saying their city’s bagels are better than NY/NJ, so I shuffled loose the Twitter/X coil last year. I haven’t bothered with Threads though I have set up shop on BlueSky, but even there I can feel like I just don’t have it in me anymore.

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A post shared by @oldsaltseattle_

All of this is to say that a lot of Seattle bagel news only seems to happen on social media, so there are plenty of times when I feel like the last one to know about a pop-up, new location, or new bagel place. Instagram, especially, is where most of the breaking news goes down, but I’m not putting that app back on my phone anytime soon.

So it was a bit of a shock when I found out Old Salt had a new location literally on the day they opened. I had no idea they were even looking to find their own space outside of Manolin’s Stone Way digs, but it also made a lot of sense. Old Salt has established itself as one of the best bagels in town and deserving of a standalone storefront. Setting up shop right next door to Rupee Bar, which is owned by the same folks, is a savvy move.

It looks like they’ll continue to sell bagels with the same hours for both places, Wednesdays to Fridays (8 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and Saturdays and Sundays (8 a.m. to 2 p.m.). The big question I have is whether or not they’re baking the bagels at each shop individually or if they’re baking them in Wallingford and driving them over to Ballard. Based on one IG video, it looks like they’re baking in Ballard, so it’ll be interesting to see the difference between the two locations (if there is one).

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A post shared by @oldsaltseattle_

Regardless, I take all of this as a very good sign for Old Salt and the Seattle bagel scene in general. Used to be that Capitol Hill had an iron grip on bagels per capita with Rubinstein, Eltana, Westman’s, Macrina, Dingfelder’s. and Ben & Esther’s (R.I.P.). These days, you’ve got U District featuring Bean & Bagel, Westman’s, Blazing Bagels, Einstein’s, and presumably Toasted if/when it opens. And now Ballard includes Old Salt, Rachel’s, and Aaron’s Bagels (a mainstay at the Ballard Farmer’s Market these days).

I’m sure Hey Bagel is keeping a close eye on how all of this plays out as they try to figure out where they want to eventually set up shop, not to mention any other bagel place that might be looking to find a brick-and-mortar home or expand into another one.

It does beg the question (and one bagel business owner posed this question to me), what would be the best Seattle neighborhood to open in right now? I might have to delve into that in a future mid-week post. Do you look for a place far from any competition, like Zylberschtein’s, or do you look for a community that would love to support great bagels even though there are already a few shops around the corner?

While I ponder that, my next stop will be Old Salt’s new Ballard location. Look for a fresh review this weekend. And if you’ve already been, let me know in the comments what you thought.

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